70 SYLVA FLORIFERA. 



horticulturist as well as the agriculturist, who 

 h&s collected to one spot the fruits and grains 

 that were scattered so widely over the globe, 

 and who has by his art so much improved 

 what he has collected, that we now reject as 

 food the strawberry of the arbutus, which fed 

 the earlier race of mankind. 



The Greeks called this tree Kopapoc, and the 

 fruit Mifjuuzvxov ; the Latins named the tree 

 arbutus; but in Pliny's time, when Rome 

 abounded in wine and oil, they called the fruit 

 of this tree unedo, which was an abridgement 

 of unum edo, meaning, you will eat but one. 

 It has the name of strawberry-tree with us, 

 because its berries so nearly resemble, in ap- 

 pearance, that delicious fruit. When it was 

 first introduced from Ireland, it bore the name 

 of Cain-apple. We conclude that this name 

 was bestowed on it by superstition, whose ter- 

 rible imagination alone was able to transform 

 these beautiful berries into clots of Abel's 

 blood. 



We are not able to ascertain precisely at 

 what period the arbutus was first cultivated 

 in England. Dr. Turner says that he had not 

 seen it in this country in 1568. Gerard also 

 describes the tree in 1597, but he does not 

 say that it was then planted in our gardens. 

 Parkinson notices in 1640. that " it came to 



